Was £65k a huge salary 5-6 years ago?

[Donotfitin]

I‘m just curious as back then we thought it was life changing money. I’m currently on that salary and to us it’s now “mid” (in fact, I’m starting a new job with a higher salary which is a really nice upgrade, but still not life changing).

So I wonder if it was us being naive back then, life getting expensive, or something else.

It’s not a direct comparison though because if it’s a family with children low wages are artificially topped up with in work benefits.

Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £39,039 in April 2025.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2025

It might be "mid" to you, but statistically it isn't.

I remember being offered a salary of £70k in 2019 and my (now late) dad being really impressed, I’ve got the message with him calling it “serious money”. I’m on £90k now which is probably in line in with inflation or a bit higher and I would say we are very comfortable, financially (I’m the higher earner but we combine everything as married). I’m not London-based any more but it wouldn’t go as far, there!

It seems pretty high now.
I've been slogging away in my professional career (teacher) for 30 years and am not on anything like this, but have 'topped out' on the teacher's payscale.
To me, it would be life changing.

I was offered a job about 6 years ago, for £80k. At that time, I was thinking "how on earth will I spend all of this money?!"

I'm now on £75k and I'm very comfortable, but we're not talking owning holiday homes or anything.

Life has got SO much more expensive.

No DH earned that about 5 years ago and we managed but not a lot left over for treats at the time.

Well if you are single say on 35k I doubt you’re entitled to any top up so as I say, those at the lower end have to meet the higher cost of living plus don’t have any high salary income to dip into to cushion it. Also people with kids up to about 60k also get benefits in the form of child benefit. It’s hard for everyone I agree, but if I doubled my salary tomorrow it would be life changing. That’s just my personal situation.

You would need to earn over 85k to double a 35k net income.
And again, most salaries at that income will take off a large chunk for student loads so it’s still hard to make a comparison.

An individual who earns £65,000 p.a. is amongst the top 10% of earners.

That means that 90% of earners get less than £65,000.

Yeah I’m aware of that, but back then it seemed like an astronomical sum. Today, I think £130-150k would seem astronomical to me.

It's still a good income now. I'd love to have that much money.

I'm a single parent of a teenager so I essentially have to finance two adults on that kind of salary. I have enough to pay the bills and save a little bit but I'm definitely not rich!

Not huge, no.

It's double my salary and I'm very comfortable, so I'd say yes 5-6 years ago that would be a very decent salary.

I think you’d have to be quite out of touch and/ or very poor at managing money to not think that is very high!!

Hardly.

Try complaining about your £65K to some one on a zero hour minimum wage contract. It was a lot and still is, just distorted by the people on this forum who earn £250k and are on the breadline.

Have you really not been aware of the humongous cost of living increases op?! Really???

I was on that 10 years ago. It was a nice mid-range salary in an insurance firm but nothing spectacular. There were many earning more.

Is that normal in insurance companies?

[No wonder they quote such outrageous prices and constant increases]

It's what I currently earn, I don't feel it's astronomically high but it does mean I am 'comfortable'. Still can't afford fancy holidays and desperately need a new kitchen etc I feel like every time I make a jump in salary, everything else goes up so the disposable income bit gets swallowed. I am looking to keep increasing my salary in the next few years and hoping to add another 20k at least which would make life a lot more enjoyable, so long as everything else doesn't keep going up!

When I've been looking for jobs recently, there are dozens and dozens of £75k-100k plus jobs currently available in my area of work, but I guess it depends on what you do as to what is a 'good' salary.

In my industry £65k is the lower end of average.

£85k is the higher end of average. Above £95k (or even £100k) would be considered a higher salary.

You’ll need to reuse toilet paper and live off beans on toast

How do you afford an £800k house on your salary? Is there another person you share the mortgage with or did you buy the house when it was much, much cheaper? Or have a huge deposit? No-one is lending more than 10X income for a mortgage.

For the people saying it’s good - do you have family money where you’ve paid off the mortgage etc? Otherwise, it’s just a mid-level basic income these days. My basic salary is a little more topped up by bonus etc, but once the basics are paid it’s nothing special. I live in a standard 3-bedroom semi, in a nice safe area. I have savings so if I were sacked tomorrow I could still pay the mortgage for a few months. But, I’m not swimming in designer clothes or jetting off to the Maldives every year. When did this become normalised that we should expect the bare minimum from life?